fox news

I had the great privilege of attending the private taping of Huckabee on October 28, 2011, which is, of course, Governor Mike Huckabee’s show on Fox News. As any reader of this blog already knows, I am a huge supporter of Toby Keith. I caught word that Toby was going to be a guest star on the show that day and I quickly scooped up a ticket. I had never been to a live television taping so I had no idea what to expect. After a long wait, the 50 or so people who scored tickets were brought into a small studio. At first we were greeted by a comedian who did his best to keep us attentive until the stars came out. When Governor Huckabee did come out he had a few jokes for the crowd and was very hospitable.

You can see the video clips of the Governor with Toby Keith that were aired on television below. The most impressive moment of my experience was something that went unaired. During a ten minute sound check, Toby actually taught Governor Huckabee his new song “Clancy’s Tavern” on the fly. They played through the song twice and Toby commented where he wanted the Governor to change notes. It was a great moment as a fan to see my musical hero teach an accomplished politician and TV personality a song, which I consider the best on his new album, in such a short amount of time. As you can see by the video, they played it to perfection. Toby’s last comment, off camera, to Huckabee was “I will be your Huckleberry Huckabee”.

What was not seen on television yet was an additional segment in which they taped that same day for an upcoming Christmas Special that Huckabee will be airing on Fox News. The two spoke about an early Christmas memory that Toby had (I will not spoil it for anyone) and again did a sound check for a version of “The Little Drummer Boy”. After trying out several different approaches to the song, they settled on a faster paced version of the song with a drummer named Bob banging on the drums at a rapid pace. Fans of both Governor Huckabee and Toby Keith will be very pleased with the result. Keep your eye out for when that airs on Fox News.